Blazes and Secrets
by New Decade
Summary: The difference between right and wrong. The fine line between emotion and ethics. Protecting others and hurting a stranger. Eric and Calleigh 9.04. Was removed for editing reasons, but now restored.


I was looking through my computer and found this, forgetting I had published it, and found tons of mistakes. I removed it from the board and went back to edit, removing because I wasn't sure I would put it back on after reading. In the end I re-published, hopefully my mistakes have all been corrected, and I hope everyone likes it now. If you do, please review!

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He had grown to the point of obsessed with finding Memmo; killing Riaz had only been half of the revenge he had been longing to fulfil. But until a few weeks ago Memmo had been serving a life sentence for his involvement in the Mala Noche and the murder of his sister. Eric still clearly heard her scream "Eric!" when the bullet first grazed his arm before the lethal shot had hit her in the abdomen and she fell into him. Her panicked voice was the last clear word she had said to him, it still haunted his nightmares.

Eric wanted to pull that trigger, he wanted to kill that pathetic excuse for a human being, and his mind had become subdued by vengeance with nothing to hold him back. Except one thing, that little girl. Had Eric been thinking clearly he would have made the same choice Horatio had told him to make and hold fire. He didn't want Elsa to see the same thing he did whenever he thought about Marisol. Memmo was a convict and a murderer, but she still called him Daddy and that's whom she would always see him as.

Shaking his head with a distressed sigh, Eric closed his locker as the sound of another opened.

"Are you okay?" Calleigh asked softly as she extracted her purse out of her locker.

"Yeah," Eric nodded, wishing with all of his heart they were going home together. He needed her after this long day, he wanted that security he had always felt when they held one another; but he knew that wasn't going to be an option.

"Are you lying?" Calleigh asked, hoping he wouldn't take it as an accusation, but rather as a way for him to open up.

Eric exhaled and looked down, grinning at himself. He sometimes wondered if Calleigh was the human version of a polygraph, she always seemed to know when someone was lying or when they were telling the truth.

"How do you do that?" he questioned, looking up at her with a smile; a smile she noted didn't quite meet his eyes.

"Do what?" Calleigh asked, taken aback by the question.

"Know everything I'm thinking," he clarified, giving Calleigh the answer she was looking for as far as his well being.

"Oh, that. Um...woman's intuition," she shrugged, winking at him to verify that she was only joking, making Eric chuckle lightly. "I've known you for years, I know when you're okay and when you're not."

Eric nodded as she closed her locker, her face turning sympathetic. He knew he was in for one of her Duquesne talks, which most of the time made him feel better.

"You made the right decision not taking Memmo down today," she whispered.

Eric rolled his lips and looked at her as she took a few steps towards him. She was dangerously close, all he had to do was reach his hand up and his fingers would be stroking her cheek. He longed to feel her soft skin beneath his fingertips again, but fought the urge.

"I know," Eric nodded. "I just-I wasn't thinking clearly wanting to shoot him in front of that little girl."

"No, you were," Calleigh reassured him. "You were thinking clearly as Marisol's brother."

"But I should have been thinking as a cop," Eric murmured, bitterly at himself. "I could have emotionally scarred someone, Calleigh."

"But you didn't," Calleigh reminded him. "And you know what? I think that if Horatio hadn't been there, you wouldn't have then, either."

"Calleigh, I think you have too much confidence in me. If Horatio hadn't stopped me, he would be dead by now."

Calleigh found that difficult to believe. Calleigh thought that if, deep inside him, Eric hadn't been thinking of Elsa then Eric would have ignored Horatio's orders had shot Memmo. Calleigh knew Eric had tried going after Riaz alone down in Brazil, Horatio to arrive moments later, so he could have easily done the same thing today. She knew Eric and she knew he wouldn't have taken the shot.

"I don't think so," Calleigh disagreed. "But you don't have to beat yourself up about it, everyone lapses, Eric."

"You don't," Eric pointed out, unable to recall a time she let her emotions take control of her job. She was always able to separate work from her feelings, never letting one outweigh the other.

Calleigh bit her lip as her eyes lingered on the floor, almost as though she was debating whether or not to tell him something. Her bright eyes traveled back up to look at the man she loved, trying to control her wants to embrace him and kiss him with reassurance.

"Not while on duty. But I have found myself ruled my emotions being conflicted with my ethics and what I think as right," Calleigh sighed, recalling the one time in her recent memory that she suffered that dangerous flare of emotion.

"Yeah, right," Eric scoffed, but he saw the pain in Calleigh's eyes and saw that she was telling the truth. He found it difficult to accept that _Calleigh _would find herself in that situation in which her heart overruled her mind, she was usually so controlled and he thought it was a skill she was born with, never something she fought to perfect like he had.

"It was about a year ago," Calleigh said, sitting on the bench. Eric copied her, sitting across from her in his attempt to not make this conversation easier instead of any chance of creating a silent romance. "It was after the…" Calleigh cleared her throat, clearly this was a subject she wasn't comfortable talking about. "Accident. The doctors told us you would be okay and told us that visiting hours were over and we had to leave. I had been worried for hours about you, I was sad and—but when they told us you were going to be okay and that we didn't need to worry, I began to feel angry. I was angry this had happened. I was angry at myself for shooting at you, I was angry at you for being in that car and I was angry at…I was angry at Sharova."

She let that sit in the air for a minute, letting Eric take in everything she had just said before taking a deep breath to continue.

"I just kept thinking if he had never come along and if you two hadn't started to know each other that none of it never would have happened. I was…so, so angry. I don't remember the last time I was that-." Calleigh cut herself off to return her mind back to its original point. "I just wanted to hurt him the way he hurt you. I wasn't thinking clearly. Hell, I wasn't thinking at all, all my rationality had flown out the window. I just drove to the Detention Center and only then, did I start thinking clearly."

Eric looked at her in utter disbelief, unable to comprehend that Calleigh would let herself fall victim to anger, much less fall due to the situation of him and his father. She had drove there with murderous thoughts, something he didn't think Calleigh would ever have enter her mind whilst in a fit of rage.

"What stopped you?" Eric asked, his voice sounding a bit strange due to the shock.

"The same thing you guys thought today," Calleigh shrugged. "I thought of someone who was going to get hurt if I had…gone inside. I thought of you and how you probably didn't want me going in there and-."

Calleigh stopped, she had nothing more to say about the demon she had hidden within herself for over a year. She wasn't sure how Eric was going to respond; she would understand if he were angry with her, she wouldn't blame him, but she hoped that her moment of weakness made him realize that he didn't need to beat himself up over the situation with Memmo. If Eric went home tonight and didn't feel guilty about his thoughts and almost actions tonight, she wouldn't mind him getting angry.

"You're the only person I'd lose it for, Eric," Calleigh breathed as she looked at the floor and picked up her purse, swinging it over her shoulder. He stood up with her; she didn't see any anger in his expression. "I'm just saying you shouldn't feel bad, we all lose it sometimes and it's normally for someone we love and I know you loved Marisol."

"Yeah," Eric nodded.

"So did Horatio. And I have learned that when you hurt someone Eric Delko loves, you're digging your own grave. When you hurt someone Horatio Caine loves, you may as well of made yourself a noose. But when you hurt someone they _both _love," Calleigh sighed, followed by a faux shudder. "Well, let's just say Memmo's breaths are numbered. You'll get him," Calleigh promised.

Eric smiled a gratefully at her and nodded.

"You know you didn't have to tell me about…that night," he said, knowing it wasn't an easy story for her to repeat.

"You deserved to know. I _did _almost severely damage your father," Calleigh shrugged. "I'm actually surprised you're not angry with me about that."

Eric chuckled and smiled down at her.

"The infamous Calleigh Duquesne lost her cool for _me. _How can I be angry at that?" he asked. "I'm actually flattered."

Calleigh smiled, a bit embarrassed by his statement, as she shook her head.

"Well, I should be getting home," Calleigh sighed, pulling out her car keys. "We still on for drinks on Friday?"

"It's on me," Eric promised as they began to leave the locker room.

Calleigh chuckled as they exited the door Eric held open for her, she dipped her head in gratefulness as they walked through the lobby of PD.

"Are you going to be okay?" Calleigh asked as they walked out into the air, the temperature a lot cooler now that the evening had begun and the sun was almost out of sight.

"I will now," Eric nodded. Eric had always thought that even on the worst of days Calleigh was able to shed just the right amount of light upon it to make it bearable.

"Are you lying?" Calleigh tested with a smile, repeating her same question from earlier as she raced an eyebrow.

"Now, Calleigh, would I lie to you?" Eric asked, jokingly as they made their way down the cement stairs towards the parking lot.


End file.
